Dr Eva Orsmond, a weight-loss expert, doesn’t mince her words while talking to Prof Luke O’Neill, who is standing in for Seán Moncrieff on Moncrieff (Newstalk, weekdays), on Tuesday. If only she were as careful about some of what she says as she is with calories.
When asked about people who claim they eat well and exercise but can’t lose weight, Orsmond says they should be sent “straight away to Ethiopia”, adding later, in an echo of Kate Moss’s controversial line, that “nothing feels as good as skinny feels”.
For a moment I wonder if my radio has been tuned to 1952. Orsmond is certainly entitled to her opinion – and has never been shy in giving it, even if it goes against the grain – but O’Neill should ask why she thinks such retrograde comments are appropriate.
The discussion about weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic – the reason Orsmond is on Newstalk – is of huge importance, as is the wider discussion around healthy eating. But, at points, anyone listening to Orsmond who isn’t “skinny”, or who finds losing weight difficult, could feel ashamed of just being who they are.
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Is it possible to talk about weight, a difficult and potentially triggering topic for some of Newstalk’s listeners, without shaming people or making them feel guilty for having a handful of nuts with their pint? (Too many calories, Orsmond indicates.) It absolutely is. Pity it doesn’t happen here.
O’Neill is an affable presence on air, but he should do more to counter some of Orsmond’s comments, particularly the incomprehensible one about Ethiopia. He’s a guest host, and no doubt is balancing multiple tasks while live on air, but at several moments the conversation is highly discomfiting.
In contrast, a discussion about social-media abuse of politicians on Monday’s The Hard Shoulder (Newstalk, weekdays) brings up some interesting points. Its presenter, Kieran Cuddihy, welcomes Seán Ó Fearghaíl, the Ceann Comhairle, and Hazel Chu, the Green Party councillor and former lord mayor of Dublin, on to talk about their experiences.
Ó Fearghaíl begins by remarking that he is abused less than women are. But he did once receive an anonymous letter from someone who hoped that a cancer diagnosis would “get” him. “The implication was that if it didn’t get me, they were waiting in the long grass for me anyway,” says Ó Fearghaíl. “That kind of thing was quite sinister.”
He’s concerned that abuse could put off a diversity of people from entering politics, explaining, “When I sit in the Dáil in the Ceann Comhairle’s chair and I look out, I see more people like myself – old, grey-haired guys – than I do of the sort of people that I see if I walk down Grafton Street.”
Chu has, sadly, long been a target of insidious racist comments online. She commends Ó Fearghaíl for his role in establishing the Oireachtas Task Force on Safe Participation in Political Life and calls for it to be established at council level too. “If you can’t tell people, ‘Listen, this is a job you can be safe in,’ people wouldn’t want to go into it,” she says.
The slot could do with more from Chu, given the egregious level of threats against her, but listeners are left in no doubt of the reality of political life. To hammer it all home, Cuddihy reads out a news alert during the conversation: a man has just been charged with making an online threat to kill Taoiseach Simon Harris.
You truly don’t know what you’ll get from one minute to the next on Liveline (RTÉ Radio One, weekdays), as Joe Duffy, its host, either tries to squeeze sense out of the nonsensical or opens the floor for a game-changing emotional conversation.
On Wednesday an 81-year-old Italian man named Giuseppe calls the show looking to be connected with an Irish woman named Vera, whom he last met in 1971. The quest – conducted via Giuseppe’s English-speaking friend Guido and Duffy’s smattering of Italian – is a search for the proverbial needle in a haystack. But, against all odds, in true Liveline fashion, the pair are reunited on air. “He’s found his tongue now,” says Duffy as Giuseppe asks Vera how she and her sister Mary are. Aw.
The day before, the show leaned into chaos over the delivery of a postcard. Jon Beardmore, the “Galapagos postman”, is raising awareness of motor neuron disease by hand-delivering a selection of 50 letters across the world. One – a postcard with a sea lion on the front – is destined for an address in Dublin.
“Anything could go right, but it never does,” says Duffy with a sigh before introducing Beardmore, who is in Glasnevin, in the north of the city, to deliver the postcard. Beardmore’s phone keeps cutting out as he knocks on the recipient’s door. So far, so chaotic.
Next, Beardmore reports that the postcard recipient doesn’t want to speak from his doorstep. Until the magic of Joe Duffy kicks in. “If you hold up the phone to Paddy’s ear…” the canny presenter suggests. Seconds later the previously shy Paddy is chatting away, proving more than a match for Duffy in the wit department.
Turns out that Paddy’s son and his son’s husband had sent the postcard from the Galapagos. Next thing listeners know, Duffy is showering Paddy with gifts, including a stay in a hotel in “the heart of Ennis”, which Paddy initially misunderstands as a trip to Venice.
It’s all a bit of diverting entertainment, undergirded by the fact that Beardmore is raising funds for a very deserving cause. The segment ends with Beardmore and Paddy heading off together for a pint – with an open invitation to listeners of the show.
Which is kind of them, as I need a pint myself after listening to it all unfold live on air. Just don’t tell Dr Eva Orsmond that I have a handful of salted peanuts with my drink. Perish the thought.
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